As the old joke goes, how can you tell when Pat Robertson is lying? His lips are moving.

In what has become an annual tradition of prognostications, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in “mass killing” late in 2007.

“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”

I’m sure Pat’s latest prediction is scaring the money right out of wallets all over the country, but I wonder if it’ll be as successful a fundraising tool as this one from May :

In another in a series of notable pronouncements, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America’s coastline this year.
. . .
“If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms,” Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, “There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.”

Or this prediction from March :

On the March 7 broadcast of Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club, host Pat Robertson pronounced that there will be a new vacancy on the Supreme Court by “the end of this year.” Robertson did not say what led him to believe a vacancy would open, why it would open, or which justice would be leaving the high court.

Or these predictions from early 2005 :

“Well, the Lord has some very encouraging news for George Bush … What I heard is that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff. … He’ll have Social Security reform passed. He’ll have tax reform passed. He’ll have conservative judges on the courts. And that basically he is positioned for a series of dramatic victories which I hope will hearten him and his advisers. They don’t have to be timid in this matter because the wind is blowing at his back, and he can move forward boldly and get results.”
. . .
“2005 will be another good year for the world. The terrorist threat will diminish. Nations will walk in peace, but it will be an illusion. The peril to Israel is greater now than it has ever been for she will be seduced into a false peace that will leave her vulnerable.”

Or this one from the 1998 :

On the June 8 edition of his “700 Club” show, Robertson denounced Orlando and Disney World for welcoming gay tourists to the theme park during a privately sponsored “Gay Days” weekend. Robertson predicted dire consequences.

Noting that the city government allowed the display of rainbow flags on light poles, the TV preacher warned that acceptance of homosexuality could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombs and “possibly a meteor.”

Or his prediction that the world would end in the fall of 1982. Sorry Pat, but I’ll take my phony predictions from a more reliable source :